Friday, March 20, 2009

I'm always talking about revenue streams. "You gotta have a lot of revenue streams!" Some money coming in from cartoon sales, advertising, work, t-shirt sales, teaching, etc. It's not a new idea at all.

Cartoonist Bud Blake (1918-2005), who is best known for the long running comic strip Tiger, talks about drawing a rough for the Saturday Evening Post:

"One of the things I made a little money on was selling roughs to the Saturday Evening Post, among other places. I didn't sell many, but I sold some. In other words, you did a little rough drawing that you think would be cover material and you rather hope that they'll say, "Oh, fine sonny, why don't you do this and we'll run it as a cover." But they never do. They would say, "Who should we give this to?" It always killed me. They'd give it to Gordon Utz or somebody. I did one of the railroad station at Red Bank, N.J. There was a train full of commuters with their hats and stuff. And running down the platform in her nightie was an obviously young wife, holding up her husband's briefcase. The drawing I made showed the inside of the train, with all of the smoke and gloom. And out of the window was the wife, really the star of the piece. So they changed it around and showed her in the front instead. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. But they paid me $150, so swell. I can't complain."

- Bud Blake interviewed by Rob Stolzer in Hogan's Alley #13

Leif Peng at his Today's Inspiration blog shows us the whole process, from Bud Blake's initial sketch to final result. A laborious, multi-step process that shows that illustrators like Thornton Utz really earned their dough.